Biden wins UAW endorsement as he makes pitch to blue-collar workers
Washington ― The United Auto Workers granted President Joe Biden its long-awaited endorsement for reelection Wednesday as he makes the case that he's delivered for working people.
"Elections aren’t about picking your best friend for the job or the candidate who makes you feel good. Elections are about power," UAW President Shawn Fain said during the union's National Community Action Program Conference.
"This November, we can stand up and elect someone who stands with us and supports our cause, or we can elect someone who will fight us and divide us every step of the way. That’s what this choice is about. The question is, who do we want in that office to give us the best shot at winning?"
A member of the audience shouted: "Joe Biden!"
Fain said former President Donald Trump, who is leading the Republican nomination race, doesn’t care about the American worker, while Biden stood "by our side every step of the way" in efforts last year to reopen a Stellantis assembly plant from closure in Belvidere, Illinois, and appearing with striking General Motors Co. workers on the picket line in Wayne County.
"That's a choice we face. It's not about who you like. It's not about your party, it's not this bull---- about age. It's not about anything but our best shot at taking back power for the working class," Fain said.
"Donald Trump is a scab. Donald Trump is a billionaire, and that's who he represents. If Donald Trump ever worked in an auto plant, he wouldn't be a UAW member. He'd be a company man trying to squeeze the American worker."
The endorsement follows months of uncertainty and delay, with the union withholding its endorsement as other organized labor groups got behind the Democratic president's bid for a second term. Another major labor group, the Teamsters, also has not made an endorsement in the presidential race.
The Detroit News was first to report last year that the UAW planned to withhold an endorsement for Biden until the Democratic president showed support for a "just transition" to electric vehicles. But the union nod still came earlier than it did for him in 2020 or for previous Democratic nominees Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
After Fain’s announcement, Biden came onto stage amid chants of “Joe! Joe! Joe!” from workers on their feet. His remarks were briefly interrupted by protesters with a Palestinian flag whose shouts were drowned out by workers chanting “UAW” over and over as the demonstrators were dragged out of a convention hall.
"I'm proud that you have my back. Let me just say I'm honored to have your back and you have mine. That's the deal," Biden said. “I was so damn proud to stand on that picket line with you."
Fain downplayed the protest: “It's just some of our members exercising their voice,” he said. “At the end of the day, we're gonna come together, we're a united union. We're more united than we've ever been in my working life, and we're gonna move forward.”
The UAW last year won wage increases totaling 27% over the life of the union's new contracts with GM, Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis NV, prompting foreign-owned automakers like Toyota Motor Corp. and Hyundai Motor Co. to raise wages for their non-union workers.
More:Look inside the UAW's work to organize transplants, EV autoworkers
The UAW nod could be pivotal for this year's presidential election, with many of the union's 383,000 active members and hundreds of thousands of retirees living in battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin that have been decided by tight margins in recent cycles.
Wednesday's event followed Tuesday's primary election in New Hampshire, where Trump won the Republican contest and Biden, a Democrat, secured a write-in victory.
David Dulio, a political scientist at Oakland University, said that, while expected, the UAW nod is a big deal, even though one would expect such an organization to endorse a Democratic candidate who describes himself as the most labor-friendly president ever and who showed up on the picket line to rally workers last fall.
"I think it’s a bigger deal because of the success that former president Trump has had with voters who look like those union workers ― blue-collar autoworkers, manufacturing workers — who were really key to his surge in 2016 and kept it close in 2020," Dulio said.
"Trump is going to give those voters an alternative and really try to bring that success that he found eight years ago. That is likely to be dampened by the fact that Mr. Fain negotiated what appears to be a really good deal for his members, and maybe that means they will follow him on this."
Fain predicted after his speech that the UAW's contract talks and Trump's appearance last fall at a non-union facility in Macomb County would boost the number of votes Biden gets as the Democratic nominee from UAW workers.
"It's gonna make a big difference in Michigan. Our people have been waiting, our people are watching and, like I said, we're gonna go to work now," Fain told reporters.
"We're gonna do our messaging, get our messaging with our membership and in our communities, and we're gonna push like hell now that we've made an endorsement. We're gonna go to work for him."
That could range from rallies to visits, putting out talking points, conducting phone banking and doing door-to0door canvassing, he offered as examples.
UAW workers attending the three-day conference this week generally had positive things to say about Biden, while acknowledging Trump's appeal to some of their fellow members.
Jessie Collins, a UAW retiree from Flint, said Wednesday he'll be voting for Biden, citing the strong U.S. economy and low unemployment. But he's worried about Biden's prospects in Michigan, noting friends there who tell him they're still on the fence.
"I'm hearing that a lot. They talk about voting independent versus Biden, and they talk about his age. What the hell?" said Collins, chair of the Local 599 Retiree Chapter. "If he wasn't doing his job, I'd get that, but he's doing his job. He's got good people around him."
UAW retiree Muriel Samuels, 74, of Flint said voting for Biden is a "no brainer," and that she's confident he'll win Michigan again. She's especially happy with the low unemployment rate and the administration's efforts to protect abortion rights.
"I hate to say this, but there are people who are not looking at the facts. They're drinking the Trump Kool-Aid, and they're believing whatever he tells them," said Samuels, who worked at the Flint Metal Center for 35 years.
"It really bothered me when he talked about immigrants 'poisoning' the blood of this country. The majority of the people that have come to this country are immigrants. That's what has made this country great. Don't forget the fact that two of his three wives were immigrants."
The UAW endorsement follows some ups and downs in the relationship between Biden and Fain over the last year during negotiations between the Detroit Three and the union over new contracts and later during a strike that lasted over 40 days. Fain at times was critical of White House involvement in the talks with the companies.
But Biden publicly sympathized with the workers during the standoff, and in September made history when he traveled to Van Buren Township in Michigan to join UAW workers on the picket line ― a first for a sitting U.S. president in over 100 years.
"You made a lot of sacrifices. You gave up a lot when the companies were in trouble. Now, they're doing incredibly well. And guess what? You should be doing incredibly well, too," Biden told the workers at the time. "You deserve a significant raise you need and other benefits. Let's get back what we lost, OK? ... It's time for them to step up for us."
Asked how significant that trip by Biden was, Fain noted it had never happened in U.S. history before for a president to visit a picket line. "It's a pretty substantial statement from the sitting U.S. president to come out on the picket," he said.
Republicans belittled the visit as "nothing more than a photo op." "Shame on Biden for attempting to gaslight Michigan families who are footing the bill for his green energy campaign," RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said at the time.
Trump held a rally the same day at a non-union auto parts maker in Michigan, which Fain has cited as evidence that the former president doesn't care about what UAW workers stand for. He also criticized Trump for being non-responsive during a different strike while he was president.
More:UAW strike brings Biden, Trump to Michigan to battle for the American worker
Trump suggested at that rally that the UAW should endorse him instead of Biden, as the former president makes the transition to electric vehicles part of his anti-"woke" culture war stump speech. He sees the chance to gain working-class support by playing to skepticism over EVs, claiming they would reduce domestic auto jobs.
Trump also has publicly attacked Fain and union leaders and urged workers not to pay dues.
"Autoworkers are getting totally ripped off by crooked Joe Biden and their horrendous leadership, because these people are allowing our country to do these electric vehicles that very few people want," Trump said in a campaign video last fall.
"The union bosses don't want to do anything about (the EV transition) because they're not leaders. But you know who's voting for me? The people in the union."
Fain said Wednesday he didn't talk to Trump during the endorsement process.
"I don't really believe I needed to. I personally was not a fan to begin with," Fain told reporters. "I know what he said. I know what his track record has been, and he has never stood for working class people."
The union only has endorsed Democrats for president since Walter Reuther took over the union in 1946, in contrast to unions like the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which has endorsed Republicans like Ronald Reagan, according to Mike Smith, former director of Wayne State University’s Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs.
“Since the Reuther era, the UAW has been firmly in the Democratic camp,” Smith said. “Now, leadership doesn’t always reflect what’s on the floor. A prime example of that is Macomb County with Reagan Democrats from the ’80s and support for Trump (in 2016).”
But the union’s influence also has fallen, he noted: “It’s nowhere near what it used to be when the union had 1.5 million members and the country’s population was much less. They had serious clout.”
Still, Smith said, almost 400,000 members and their families, many of whom are concentrated in battleground states like Michigan and Ohio, have power to make a difference in the vote.
It also gives credence to Biden’s claims of being the most pro-union president: “Democratic president candidates love the UAW’s vote. He’s coming out and supporting it, especially the strike. You don’t see it very often.”
UAW retiree John D. Hunter, 81, of Sheffield Village, Ohio, said workers should look at Trump's actions over what what he says and promises.
"You say you support labor unions and then you don't support labor unions — you change laws to do things. You say, 'I'm for the military,' and then you take money away from the military families," right?" said Hunter, who spent 40 years working for Ford Motor Co. including in Dearborn.
"His actions don't match up his words. He's a good 'spokesman.' He should go back to television."
UAW worker Ayannah Cleary, 41, of Southfield said she did like the economy better when Trump was president but will be supporting Biden, in part because she can't stomach what she called Trump's arrogance and sense of entitlement.
She stressed the importance of turning out young UAW workers to vote in the fall. "That's a struggle that we have. They don't understand the importance of it," said Cleary, who works at the Stellantis Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit. She also hears concerns about Biden's support for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza, she said.
"The fact that he supported us during the strike is huge," Cleary said. "His supporting us and standing with us and walking with us (on the picket line) ― that works to his advantage because no other president has done that."
mburke@detroitnews.com
Staff Writer Breana Noble contributed.